Cape Prosecutors Take on ‘Cycle of Violence’

Understanding of domestic abuse drives response

February 12, 2011
The Register

CAPE COD — How do you find justice for a heinous crime in which the victim denies being wronged, the evidence fades over time, and even if the criminal is jailed, the victim ends up in the same situation?

“I saw a case recently where someone had both eyes blackened, facial bones broken, kick marks to the rib area with broken ribs,” recounts one of Cape Cod Hospital’s licensed social workers, Jeanne Norris-Neal. “[The patients] say ‘no, no, it’s fine. It won’t happen again,’ ‘I made him angry, I had too much to drink,’ or ‘he had too much to drink.’”

The issue is domestic violence, and although many women on Cape Cod, as elsewhere, suffer at the hands of abusive partners, prosecutors find solid cases slipping through their fingers. The unique psychology of domestic abuse often causes the victim to refuse to testify against her abuser, going so far as to defend him, taking the evidence – the bruises, broken bones and scars that were pounded into her body – with her.

“The most challenging part is, in probably 90 percent of the cases, the victim is not with you by the time the case is ready to be tried,” said Lisa Edmunds, chief of the domestic violence unit in the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s office. “We have to train prosecutors to prosecute without a victim.”

The successful prosecution of domestic violence cases has taken a great deal of evolution on the part of prosecutors, law enforcement, judges and the public mindset.

Today’s teamwork

“It’s only been in the past few years where society has said this is not OK,” said Patricia Kelleher on the subject of domestic violence. Kelleher is president of Family and Community Resources Inc., which runs a state-certified batterers rehabilitation program.

The overwhelming majority of victims are women. Lysetta Hurge-Putnam, director of Independence House in Hyannis, a community resource of support groups for domestic violence and sexual assault victims, estimates that perhaps three men enroll in her classes each year. In the same period of time, she will have more than 3,000 new clients.

Domestic abuse was once considered a private issue that needed to be worked out between the couple. Even now, police sometimes meet resistance when they respond to domestic violence calls.

“A lot of the time, they don’t want you to get involved in their domestic issues,” said Yarmouth Deputy Chief of Police Steven Xiarhos. Others are extremely grateful to police officers who intervene. One woman called Xiarhos an “angel.”

In the past, police officers responding to a domestic attack couldn’t arrest the abuser unless the victim asked. Now state laws enforce a “preferred arrest” policy, and officers are required to make arrests.

“The criminal justice system is much better at holding offenders accountable,” said Kelleher. “I think police have received a lot of training. There’s actually funding for batterers’ programs now.”

Education is important, too. Domestic abuse experts caution that violence is not isolated, but part of a cyclic series of episodes. Hospital staff, police and prosecutors work with Independence House and have become intimately familiar with a model called the  “Cycle of Violence.”

The cycle predicts violence followed by a “Honeymoon Phase,” in which the abuser becomes apologetic, attentive and loving, pleading with his victim not to leave. The victim forgives, and the relationship can be almost normal – until the next jealous rage, series of insults or denial of freedoms.

“The most unique thing about these cases is, these are really the only types of cases where if you look at the histories of the two parties you can predict what kind of crime will occur,” said Edmunds.

Police officers, usually the first to respond to attacks, are trained to notice telltale signs of a dangerously unhealthy relationship, and ask for complete abuse histories in any assault situation. They also must photograph injuries, to document them in case the victim refuses to testify against her abuser. Restraining orders can be obtained immediately, with on-call judges to sign off on them via phone calls, until the morning.

Tomorrow’s progress

Despite progress, there are still a lot of problems. Relationships that are just as isolating and psychologically damaging, but don’t provide proof in the way of physical violence, are hard to prosecute. Victims with drug addictions are not very credible to juries, even when they do have the courage to testify.

But people like Edmunds are working to make things better. Edmunds and others are trying to make strangulation, a common intimidation technique, a separate crime of its own. At present, prosecutors can either charge assault and battery, which is a misdemeanor, or attempted murder, for which they must prove intent. Most abusers do not intend to kill their victims by strangulation, however, just hurt and scare them.

“Pretty much every case I look at, there’s at least one case of strangulation and suffocation,” said Edmunds. “Isn’t the ultimate act of control if you are controlling the very air on which you live?”

The Women’s Bar Association is putting together a group of attorneys willing to take on battered women’s cases pro bono, said Edmunds. In exchange, the attorneys will receive free training on the subject.